


Only Good Timing

by Aaron_The_8th_Demon



Series: A Combination Of Skill And Luck [1]
Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: "Invitation To Love" as symbolism, First Kiss, Getting Together, Ignores Season 3, Lodge dodge, M/M, Minimal Angst For Once, New Years, Office Party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:00:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21887083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaron_The_8th_Demon/pseuds/Aaron_The_8th_Demon
Summary: The party at the station always happens at New Years because everyone's usually busy at Christmas. Harry makes an unusual resolution this year.
Relationships: Dale Cooper/Harry Truman, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: A Combination Of Skill And Luck [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1617793
Comments: 8
Kudos: 54





	Only Good Timing

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Office Christmas Party](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17149148) by [the_technicolor_whiscash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_technicolor_whiscash/pseuds/the_technicolor_whiscash). 



“Sheriff?”

Harry presses the button. “Yeah, Lucy.”

“Sheriff, I have something for you out in the lobby.” She sounds excited.

“What?”

“It’s - oh, no, he said it’s a surprise and you should just come look.”

“Who said… what are you talking about, Lucy?”

“Just come look!” she insists.

Harry shakes his head and gets up from his desk to go see what Lucy’s so worked up about. He opens his office door and looks into the lobby, but there’s nothing unusual, so he takes a step out and his shoulder is grabbed from the right.

“Surprise, Harry!” Dale grins.

“Coop, hi!” They pull each other in for a hug. “Why didn’t you say you were coming up? I just wrote to you yesterday.”

They’ve been sending letters back and forth sporadically since Dale went back to his office in DC - it would’ve been more regular, but he was constantly bouncing around for his cases and the time zone differences made it really hard to have phone calls at times that were convenient for both of them.

“I wanted it to be a surprise.” Harry can’t believe he almost forgot how charming Dale’s smile is in person. It’s tragic. “Lucy has recently informed me of an office party you’re having here, so it seems my timing was well-chosen.”

“Yeah, everyone’s always real busy at Christmas with their families so we throw the party for New Years instead. How long are you staying for?”

“That’s actually a topic of discussion I was planning to have with you over lunch if you’re not busy.”

“Alright, we can do that. Say, did you meet Wally yet?”

“Only through the window.”

They make the five steps to Lucy’s door. “Lucy, would you mind showing off for Coop?”

“Okay, but only if Agent Cooper promises not to drop him.”

Dale’s hand goes up. “Lucy, I can assure you that there’s no risk of harm where I’m concerned, I’ve held infants before.”

“You have?”

“Yes, there was a child trafficking case I was working once and… it occurs to me that that’s not a pleasant story, so I’ll just stop there.” Dale’s grin widens as the tiny ball of blankets is placed in his arms. “Lucy, your son is beautiful, and you have my sincerest congratulations. How old is he?”

“Two and a half weeks now, Sheriff Truman doesn’t mind me bringing him to work and it makes Andy less nervous than having a babysitter.”

“Were you not able to take maternity leave?”

“I told her she should,” Harry shrugs. “But she was worried how we’d handle everything without her, so I said she should just bring Wally here with her. He’s boosted morale at the station, too.”

“Yes, I would imagine so.” Dale cuddles Wally against his chest. “When he reaches an age approximately between seven and thirteen years old, he’ll start to look a lot like Andy.”

Lucy looks surprised when he says that. Harry snorts.

“Coop, are there any limits to your weird mental powers?”

“Not that I’ve discovered yet,” Dale answers brightly. He passes Wally back to Lucy. “I’m glad to see you doing so well.”

“Thank you, Agent Cooper. It’s nice of you to come visit all of us for the holidays.”

“Speaking of which! Harry, let’s go have lunch.”

Harry glances at the nearest clock - 11:47. Close enough. “Okay. You wanna go to the diner?”

“Absolutely, I’ve been looking forward to Norma’s pies for my entire trip up.”

Harry drags on his puffy winter coat over the wool jacket he’s already wearing and watches Dale don something similar, complete with one of those hats with the flaps that trappers sometimes wear out in the snow. Somehow it looks goofy while still working on him, because Dale looks good in everything. Going outside, Harry groans as he realizes he has to get all the heavy wet snow off his truck before they can go anywhere. He opens the door long enough to turn the engine and immediately gets back out.

“You can sit in the car, this won’t take very long.”

Dale waits in the passenger seat while Harry clears the windshield and the door windows. By the time he’s behind the wheel he’s covered in snow, not just from freeing his truck but also because it’s still coming down. He checks to make sure he’s still in four wheel drive before getting them out of the station parking lot and onto the road. The only evidence that the plows have been out at all today is the ever-growing banks on either side.

“I’ve never seen so much snow before,” Dale smiles, absolutely delighted. Because of course he is. He always likes mundane things. “Does it do this often?”

“Yeah, it’ll be like this all winter. We get lots of accidents out on highway nine, mostly truckers from out of state that don’t know what they’re dealing with.”

“It makes for a stunning visual.”

“If you say so, Coop.”

Even taking the turn slowly, the back of his truck still fishtails for a second as they get on Main Street. Dale doesn’t seem startled by this, at least, so Harry gathers that he’s probably driven in snow before. Parking, they’re almost knee-deep walking into the diner, because apparently Norma hasn’t been able to find someone to shovel out the lot yet.

“Norma, you need some help with the snow out front?” Harry calls in the direction of the kitchen while he hangs up his coat and hat.

“I called Hugh, he said he’s busy until this afternoon…” She appears behind the counter and looks mildly shocked. “Agent Cooper, it’s nice to see you again.”

“Hello, Norma.” Dale puts his ridiculous flapped hat on the coat rack and somehow his hair is still perfect. “What kind of pie do you have today?”

“Well, since it’s close to Christmas we have some special desserts.”

She tells him about a mint-chocolate pie with a chocolate crust while Harry sits and notices that the ends of his pants are soaked all the way up to where they cover the tops of his boots. Great. It’ll probably be his whole legs by the end of the day. Damn, but he hates the snow. Even when he was a kid he didn’t like playing in it and all its cold wetness, especially since it meant he and his brother had to shovel the driveway by themselves while their dad sat inside where it was warm.

Dale sits across in the booth and sets a cup of coffee in front of him. “Harry, you seem disgruntled.”

“I don’t like winter, it’s a whole lotta work that just doesn’t end until sometime in March.” He tells his friend about everything he was just thinking.

Dale takes a long sip of his coffee and nods. “I can understand why you’d have such an unpleasant perspective. You’ll have to teach me to cope with the snow in the coming weeks, I’ve never been around so much of it before.”

“The coming weeks? How long are you gonna be here?”

There’s that smile again. “I’ve resigned from the Bureau.”

“What? Why?”

“There was an especially difficult case I had to work recently… I’d rather not go into detail at this time, but it convinced me that I needed a change of scenery and of situation. Twin Peaks left a mark in my soul… it’s special here, in a way I haven’t encountered anywhere else.”

“So you’re moving here?” Harry guesses. “Can you just leave a job like that? Will you have enough money?”

“Actually, Harry, if it wouldn’t be considered cronyism I was going to ask if you have room in your payroll to take on another officer.”

“Yeah, absolutely,” Harry nods, not even having to stop and think about it. “Consider yourself hired. When can you start?”

“Possibly as early as next week, I still have some amount of settling in to do. But, I have money to spare and it also occurs to me given the weather that I should make a more sensible choice of automobile if I’m going to live here in the years to come.”

“You should go see Ed, he knows all the best places for car stuff around here. If you end up with a truck, you should see if you can’t get a Chevy or a Toyota, they can put up with a decent amount of punishment and they’re less pricey to get fixed than a Dodge.”

“But you own a Ford.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do. I wish I picked something else, the damn thing’s always got something wrong with it. Once you got something we’ll see about getting you some roof lights for it.” Harry drinks some of his coffee. “So where are you staying right now, the Great Northern again?”

“Harry, I have a confession to make… despite being moved around and working on cases, I managed to get the issue of real estate sorted out through a series of phone calls. At one point I was in Seattle on the tail end of an investigation, and I was able to drive up and take a look while Albert covered for me. My current issue is the question of moving around all my things and making the place livable, and also figuring out the food situation. I can barely fry an egg.”

“We always have donuts at the station, I can just order some extras on Friday so you can take them home for the weekend. After work I can come over to your new place and help you move stuff around.”

“Thank you, Harry, I appreciate that.”

“I’m also a little mad that you secretly moved here without telling me. I would’ve helped you out.”

“I gather that you belong to the category of people who don’t enjoy being surprised.”

“I hate surprises,” Harry agrees.

* * *

Harry spends Christmas alone and drunk like always. He doesn’t hate Christmas the way he hates snow, but it’s definitely not his favorite thing. He’s glad when it’s over and he can go to work the next day, knowing that he has another 364 days until he has to deal with it again.

“Morning, Lucy, Wally.”

“Good morning, Sheriff. Agent C-Deputy Cooper said he’ll help me take down the Christmas decorations and put up the New Years decorations, so I was wondering if Andy can stay here for a few minutes after roll call to keep an eye on Wally while we do that.”

“I’ll see what I can do, but I might have to send him out right away. I don’t think anybody’ll complain if the Christmas decorations are up one extra day.”

Dale appears, drinking coffee like always because that’s his natural state of being. “Morning, Harry!” He makes a face and pulls out his tape recorder. “Note to self, finish next week’s budget for gasoline before lunch.” He turns it off and stuffs it back into his pants pocket. It’s never “Diane” anymore, now it’s always “note to self,” because Dale no longer has a secretary. “Before I say anything else, I wanted to thank you for the snow tires, they made a significant and positive difference getting clear of my driveway this morning. It’s the most thoughtful and practical gift I’ve ever received over the holidays.”

Harry snorts. “Thoughtful?”

“Yes, thoughtful. Nobody else has been concerned enough for my wellbeing that they’d buy expensive tires for my vehicle before.” Dale frowns slightly. “I’ve been considering getting a plow for the front of my truck, it would save significant time and effort when removing snow from my driveway after storms.”

“Nah, you don’t wanna do that, Coop, trust me. It’ll mess up the front end of your truck and eventually ruin your suspension. Just get a snowblower and a good extension cord instead. You can get both those things at the hardware store.”

“Alright, I will.”

“Agent Cooper, you already drank most of the coffee!” Lucy exclaims, sounding very annoyed about it.

“Sorry, Lucy! I can make another pot if you want.”

“Coop, how long have you been here?” Harry wonders.

“I came in early and shoveled out the parking lot. Hence most of the coffee being gone, I needed it to keep me warm.”

“Dammit, Coop, now I have no excuse not to finish up all that paperwork on my desk,” Harry half-jokes.

Dale laughs. “Don’t worry, I can help you out with that too if you have no assignments for me this morning. Now, I inconvenienced Lucy and I need to fix it, please excuse me for a few minutes.”

Harry chuckles to himself as he heads into his office and reads up on the morning’s phone traffic into the station. There’s not that much because it’s the day after Christmas, so most people are still home with their families and won’t be back at work until at least Thursday. This also means a skeleton crew because Harry wanted his officers to have as nice of a holiday as possible; it’ll be just five of them today, six counting Wally. Lucy will be here because of course, Andy will be here because he doesn’t mind working the day after Christmas, Dale will be here because he’s got nothing better to do and Bobby will be here because he just got out of the police academy and doesn’t have any time off yet except when the station is closed like yesterday.

“Lucy,” Harry yells through the open door of his office.

“What?”

“Good news, there’s nothing I have to send Andy running off for this morning, so you’ll be able to to do the decorations.”

“Thanks, Sheriff.”

He determines the minor workload for all of them for the shift and heads into the conference room at the same moment that Bobby and Andy emerge from the lockers, and in a few moments Dale joins them with a fresh pot of coffee to replace the one that he drank. And despite having drank an entire pot of coffee all on his own, still pours himself another mug of it before taking a donut.

“Okay… I’m expecting today to be pretty quiet,” Harry informs them. “Andy, you’re going to keep an eye on Wally while Lucy and Coop switch out the decorations. Bobby, since Lucy’s going to be busy for a little bit you can check to make sure tomorrow’s donut order is ready to get placed, and while you’re at it feel free to throw in two or three of your choice. I’ll be doing paperwork in my office.” He picks up the single paper off the table. “That’s it.”

Harry spends the next hour and a half pencil-pushing and filing things while also listening to Dale and Lucy talk as they switch the colored light strings for plain ones and the green garlands with gold. It’s mostly mundane things or Lucy bossing Dale around to make sure he lines everything up evenly on the walls, which Dale cheerfully goes along with each time. Personally, Harry almost finds it hysterical that Lucy thinks anything Dale does wouldn’t automatically come out perfect, and more than once he has to stop writing so that he can cover his mouth to stifle the giggles trying to get out.

Lucy appears. “Sheriff Truman, I would like you to know that there’s one Christmas decoration that I’m going to leave up, which is not up for discussion or debate.”

Harry’s immediately confused. “Lucy, I never said any of them had to come down, this is all on you.” But he’s also curious, and he frowns. “Which decoration?”

She points upwards to the tiny sprig of plant that she taped over his office door. Harry completely forgot that was there. “You’ve been overlooking something, so it needs to stay until you figure it out.”

Harry can’t even remember if it’s mistletoe or holly that’s been put there, but the way she’s acting it’s probably the first one. “Lucy, don’t you think if someone wanted to come find me and kiss me that they’d probably do it themself without any help?” Harry feels annoyed and exasperated, but also amused. There’s nobody interested in him right now. “Why did you even put it there in the first place?”

“Well Sheriff, like I said, you keep overlooking something. And maybe the person who wants to come kiss you is being very cowardly about it and asked for my help instead of figuring it out for themselves!” she shouts, clearly fed up with whoever this person is because it’s said in the same tone she uses whenever she’s reaming out Andy for something.

Dale sticks his head into Harry’s office, looking… strangely irritated in a way Harry’s never seen before. “Lucy, may I please speak with you for a moment?”

“Agent Cooper, you-”

“Lucy, please,” he insists.

Harry can’t stop himself from chuckling a little as they disappear somewhere. At least Dale has his back whenever Lucy’s being ridiculous.

* * *

“Harry.” Andy sits across from him on the other side of his desk. “Why is Lucy mad at Agent Cooper?”

“I’ve been trying to figure that out for the past week,” Harry admits. “She’s just been getting more and more upset with him since Christmas… I guess I’m getting on her nerves somehow too, but she’s trying a little harder not to snap at me it seems like.”

“It’s because you’re the boss, so she has to keep a professional work environment,” Andy informs him. “Sheriff, I wish she would just tell Agent Cooper what’s bothering her, but she never told me what was bothering her either, so I don’t think she’s going to.”

“I’ll talk to her. Hopefully it’s not too out of hand yet,” Harry decides. He gets up and goes into the conference room where Lucy’s arranging the snacks for their New Years party, which starts as soon as the shift ends. “Lucy, got a minute?”

“I guess.” Yeah, she’s definitely not happy with Harry, either.

“Did Coop do something to upset you?”

“Sheriff, on _Invitation to Love_ there were six whole episodes where Chet and Jade wouldn’t just admit they have feelings for each other, which made a lot of pointless sexual tension between them. It’s a lot more fun to watch it on tv than to see it at work. Because Chet was being a coward, and Jade was being dense, and neither of them could figure it out for themselves!” she screams.

“Lucy… what does that have to do with _anything_ I just said?” Harry wonders.

“Jade. Was being. Dense,” she repeats through ground teeth. Dale passes by the door to the conference room and she starts yelling again. “And Chet was being cowardly! So then even though Jared was having lots of health issues and had so much on his plate, he had to sort everything out _for them!_ Because they’re too dumb to do it _themselves!_ ”

Harry sighs in annoyance and doesn’t bother trying to hide it. “Lucy, why won’t you just tell me what’s going on?”

She sets a plate of cupcakes down way harder than she needs to, growls “Dense!” to him very pointedly one more time, and storms off to probably go get more of the food from the coffee nook.

Dale appears. “Harry, it seems there’s a very slim chance of you being able to fix this one.”

“Coop, it’s a hostile work environment at this point and it’s gotta stop.”

The hand goes up. “Harry, please believe me when I say that this problem is entirely my fault and it’s on me to resolve it. I’ll go speak to Lucy, assuming she’ll let me. Afterwards, I’ll meet you in your office with donuts and coffee for both of us.”

“Sounds good to me. Good luck, Coop.”

Harry steals a cookie purely because Lucy isn’t there to stop him and goes into his office. As much as he doesn’t like winter or Christmas, he does like New Years. A fresh start, regardless of whether he sticks to his resolutions or not, the promise of good things to come. As he sits and munches on his cookie, he thinks about what he’ll resolve to do this year… somehow he hasn’t thought about it too much yet, even though really he should’ve by now. This leads him to wonder what Dale’s resolutions will be, and then what Dale and Lucy are probably fighting about in another room far from his office so he can’t hear them. And after that his thoughts are just on Dale in general - how his hair stays perfect when he takes off his stupid flap-hat coming in from the snow, how he’ll always come in early to shovel just so Harry won’t have to, how he settled so easily into the life of Twin Peaks a couple weeks back when it _wasn’t_ shaken by a string of murders and weird goings-on. Twin Peaks took to Dale and Dale took to Twin Peaks, so much so that nobody seeing him the first time would ever know he’s lived here for less than a month. He looks good in flannels, he works hard, he’s content with the relative peace of rural life. Harry’s still impressed that Dale adapted so easily.

Hawk interrupts his train of thought by coming into his office. “Lucy’s ripping Cooper a new one in the interrogation room right now.”

Harry sighs. “He went to go talk with her, she’s real sore with him about something.”

“I want to say I hope they’ll figure it out soon, but it didn’t sound like that’s a realistic possibility from what I heard.”

“How much did you hear?”

Now, Hawk smirks. “Nothing I didn’t already know, actually. But I’m in a good mood right now, so even though this isn’t really my business I may be able to help you out for a small fee.”

Harry groans. “What?”

“Tomorrow’s order’s already gone out, so January second it needs to be nothing but powdered sugar jelly donuts.”

“Alright, that’s what I’ll tell Lucy to order.”

Hawk nods, closes the door, and sits. “Remember how Lucy made a big point of leaving up the mistletoe in your office last week?”

“Yeah…”

“Cooper asked for her help and that’s what she came up with. Since you still haven’t been able to figure it out for yourself, I’ll just tell you in the plainest terms possible: you’re in love with him, he knows it, and he’s waiting for you to come to your senses before making a move.”

Harry makes the mistake of stuffing the rest off the cookie in his mouth while Hawk talks and as a result he’s now choking on it. Coughing crumbs into his palm, Harry shakes his head. “Hawk, what-”

“Harry, do yourself a favor and finish hacking up a lung. Then once you’re done doing that, I want you to have a good long think about this while you’re waiting for Cooper to come back up here and start licking his wounds.” Hawk snorts. “Lucy was really letting him have it…”

“Hawk,” Harry coughs, “what the hell are you talking about?”

Hawk rolls his eyes and folds his arms across his chest. “I’m just gonna sit and wait for you to get this straight. Take your time.”

Harry glances from Hawk to the sprig of mistletoe that Lucy put in his office at the beginning of the month and, after what he’s just heard, imagines kissing Dale under it. The idea is scarily gratifying for him. God or somebody save him, because Hawk is right… he’s too stupid to figure out on his own that he’s in love with Dale. Which he is. The realization is like when his dad threw him into the lake when he was four to teach him to swim.

“Man oh man…”

Hawk nods. “Don’t worry.” He stands up from the chair and gestures slightly to the mistletoe. “Lucy made it real convenient for you.” And then he leaves while Harry sits there with his mouth open like an idiot.

With the worst timing that Harry’s seen in at least a decade, Dale immediately comes in and sits, probably to recuperate after the vicious thrashing he just got from Lucy. “Harry, we need to talk.”

And Harry’s stupid. By god, is he stupid today. Because he blurts out, with no preamble, “Coop are you in love with me?”

They stare at each other, because they’re idiots. Then they immediately stop looking. Harry doesn’t know what Dale turned to, but he’s now watching the window instead. He wishes he could go back in time five seconds and tape his own mouth shut.

“Harry…” Dale audibly chokes. “I think…”

“You don’t gotta answer that,” Harry offers, trying to rescue him.

“I should, though.” Dale takes a breath. “Expressing affection to others makes me apprehensive if it’s not platonic in nature.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes, Harry. I’m in love with you and I have been for some time, now.”

“I wish I asked that better just now.”

“It’s alright. I should’ve said something sooner, but I wanted you to have the space to discover it for yourself.”

“Okay. Uh. I didn’t, though. Hawk told me. He heard Lucy reaming you out downstairs a few minutes ago.”

“I see.” Dale seems very unhappy to learn that.

“Coop… Dale… I’m sorry for being so dumb. I’m not good at this.”

“You’re not dumb, Harry.” It’s said quietly and Harry realizes Dale, perceptive and on the ball about pretty much everything, is still afraid of rejection. “Incidentally, I came here to your office with the intention of discussing this anyway. I was hoping to approach the subject more carefully, but here we are.”

“Not to compare you or anything, but… I never made a move on Josie, either. She came to me. I’m not good at this, Coop. I’ve never been good at this.” He sighs. “I almost wanna say I wish you didn’t wait so long, but you were gone for months, so it wouldn’t really have been a good idea anyway until now.”

“I had originally planned to explain everything before leaving, but I thought that might be unnecessarily cruel.”

“Okay. So you wanna just explain everything now?”

“Harry, I’m not sure to what extent you’ve recently been made aware of this, but there is a strong connection of attraction between us.”

“Yeah.”

“I wanted you to learn of its existence for yourself before saying anything because I thought it might be less jarring and possibly upsetting for you that way.”

“Okay.” Harry nods. He suddenly decides that his resolution for this year is to kiss Dale. It’s random and basic and feels like it doesn’t require enough effort, but that’s his resolution now. “I’m not good at this, Coop.”

“Yes, so you’ve said. I don’t mind that you’re not good at this, Harry. You’re intelligent and kind and capable, and I can safely say I’ve learned a lot from you in the time we’ve known each other. You’re also handsome and generally have a no-nonsense attitude, which I appreciate and admire.”

Nobody else could say that stuff so clinically and factually while still making it sound genuine and even romantic. They’re finally looking at each other again and Dale’s eyes are bright with nervousness being overpowered by hopefulness. That by itself is weird, because in most people it would be the other way around. He’s so bold. Harry could never say things like that and be able to look the other person in the face after.

“Is it okay if I don’t have any good words for this? Because nothing I say will measure up,” Harry admits.

“That’s fine, Harry. And I don’t agree that it won’t measure up. I like your words.”

“I kinda wish I had more time to think about this first…” He breathes, gathering his thoughts. Maybe he can hack them up and put them back together in a different order to make them coherent. Something comes to him from earlier. “You work so well here, you know. As part of Twin Peaks, I mean. Like you were always part of the town, or you were always meant to be part of the town, or something. I think if you left suddenly there’d just be a hole left. Nothing else would fit in it afterwards, either. Actually that’s pretty much how it felt when you went back after the case was over.”

“I see. In that case, I’m glad we were able to write to each other and maintain contact.”

“Yeah. That made it easier. But I. I spent a lot of time wishing you were still here.” Harry breathes again. He has to say this. Dale opened up for him, now it’s his turn to do it back. “I want to be where you are, you’re… jeez, Coop, you’re perfect and you’re good at everything and come to think of it I have no idea why you’d go for me and not someone better.”

“Harry. Please listen and hear me when I say I’m not perfect. I can’t cook. I know nothing about affecting car repairs, even minor ones like changing a tire. And my behavior in regards to the current situation borders on inexcusably gutless. Please don’t say I’m perfect. It bothers me and it’s not true.”

“Okay. I won’t do it again.”

“Thank you.”

“You really can’t change a car tire?”

“Not if my life depended on it. I’m not sure how my life would depend on the replacement of a ruptured tire on a vehicle, but if it ever did, I’d be doomed.”

Harry laughs. “That’s okay, it’s pretty easy, I can show you how sometime and then you won’t be doomed anymore.”

And just like that, the tension breaks, and they can be themselves again. Harry’s about to reach across his desk for Dale’s hand when the door is knocked on and subsequently opened by Bobby. Anything to disrupt them now that they’re finally sorting themselves out, it seems.

“Sheriff, people’s girlfriends are starting to show up for the party, don’t you have to be social and stuff?”

“Lucy sent you to come get me, didn’t she?” Harry guesses.

“Yeah. She looked a little less pissed than earlier, though.”

“Great.”

Dale and Harry share a look. Harry shrugs. They both get up and leave his office. Besides all the cookies and cupcakes and donuts, people have brought actual food as well. The station can probably be best described right now as “organized chaos.” Andy shows off Wally to anyone who hasn’t seen him yet and several people who have. Lucy fights a losing battle to keep the food in order. Shelly sits on Bobby’s lap in a chair, feeding him a cookie and telling him how cute he is with his hair cut short now. Dale bounces around all over the place, socializing because he’s overly friendly and can’t be contained. Harry watches all of this with a bowl of macaroni salad and a brewing headache. It’ll be like this for several hours to come.

1990… a whole new decade for them. Harry can’t wait to shed 1989 and all its horrors finally, because it seems pretty unlikely that anything can happen in 1990 that was as awful as Laura’s murder in February.

“What are you thinking about, Harry?” Dale asks, appearing at his left shoulder.

“I know it probably doesn’t look like it right now, but New Years is my favorite holiday.”

“I see. Did you make resolutions?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Yes, I did. However with some help and much-needed badgering from Lucy I’ve already completed mine.”

Harry snorts. “I see.”

“What was yours, Harry?”

“You’ll find out pretty soon,” he promises.

Dale grins, probably already figuring it out because he’s a genius and he just knows everything. “Alright, then I can’t wait to find out.”

Things don’t really get less hectic over the next couple hours. Lucy and Andy go home with Wally for obvious reasons and a couple other people leave as well, but everyone else remains to sit around eating food wherever they like and pretty much leaving crumbs all over the station. When it gets close, though, Harry retrieves the bottles of champagne from lockup so that they can get popped open in a few minutes. Hopefully it won’t be like last year, where someone actually managed to break a window doing this. Harry’s guess is that the glass was probably defective anyway, but even so. They’d had plastic sheeting taped over that window for an embarrassingly long time before he was able to finally get it fixed.

“Alright, everyone remember, don’t point these at each other, at windows, or at anything else breakable,” Harry growls at them. “I’d much rather have corks stuck in the fiberboard than have an emergency room visit or even more repairs to pay for.”

Harry waits for them to busy themselves getting ready before sneaking back to his office with Dale in tow. He closes the door behind them and cracks his knuckles nervously.

“Harry, I’d like to say I think you’ve picked an excellent New Years resolution,” Dale says. Because of course he knows what’s going on.

Harry nods, a little nervous still. They stand there holding hands for a couple minutes, listening through the door to the ruckus in the conference room. Eventually comes the countdown being shouted as loudly as possible, and Harry starts off a new year and a new decade kissing Dale. He tastes like coffee… which Harry probably should’ve expected, really. But somehow he finds it so hysterical that he can’t keep it up because he’s laughing too hard.

“Why are you laughing at me, Harry?” Dale demands, but through a huge smile because he’s clearly also trying not to laugh.

“You taste like coffee.”

“I see. Why is that so funny?”

“I don’t know.”

He gets a grip on himself and kisses Dale a second time. It feels like a great resolution that he made this year, and he decides on the spot that this will keep being a thing for them. Every New Years, he’ll kiss Dale at midnight.

**Author's Note:**

> Why is Bobby Briggs a cop? Because he was in Season 3. I will still occasionally cherry-pick details from that disappointing mess. I imagine his dad and Shelly probably had a lot to do with it.
> 
> All the stuff Harry says about snow plows fucking the suspension of a pickup truck is true. Just get a damn snowblower.
> 
> All my Twin Peaks fics can be found [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&include_work_search%5Brelationship_ids%5D%5B%5D=127943&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&user_id=Aaron_The_8th_Demon).
> 
> Comments would be nice, happy holidays everyone.


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